Forced into recovery
Matthew Hall
$WEMAKESOFTWARE for anything else is upon me. Nothing
else is in the works for me, since this day was supposedly
postponed indefinitely - or at least until March - and
now I'm left scrambling.
I suppose I'm fine with my contract ending, but there's
just this nagging issue of my *pride*. The fscking idiots
that are still going to be there - you're dropping *me*
and keeping *them*?
Admittedly, not all are bad - there's just several I
would have rather seen go before me - so I could take
at least a small piece of satisfaction from that fact.
V'z n whavbe nqzva, V thrff guvf pbagenpg jbhyq pbafvqre zr fravbe
tvira zl yriry bs erfcbafvovyvgl urer, ohg V xabj zl obhaqnevrf.
Zl erfhzr vf ninvynoyr ng uggc://nathv.fu/rzcybl-zr, naq V'z zbfgyl
ybbxvat gb fgnl va gur Onl Nern, be erybpngr qbja gb fbhgurea Pnyvsbeavn.
Erpbzzraqngvbaf gb cvzcf, be bgure crbcyr jub pna uryc zr va zl cyvtug
jbhyq or terngyl nccerpvngrq.
V'yy cebonoyl or zbivat qbja gurer fbba - FJZOB vf engure vafvfgrag gung
V svanyyl zbir gb or jvgu ure - vg jbhyq whfg or avpr gb unir n wbo gbb.
--
It's always September somewhere on the 'net. | http://angui.sh
Another proud member of Eep's killfile. | Unix Sys. Admin.
unreal://angui.sh | lea...@angui.sh
Mark C. Langston
> The day I used to look forward to, where I would leave
> $WEMAKESOFTWARE for anything else is upon me. Nothing
> else is in the works for me, since this day was supposedly
> postponed indefinitely - or at least until March - and
> now I'm left scrambling.
I sympathize, as this happened to me yesterday as well. Anybody
need a CTO?[0]
[0] Rule #1: Don't cancel a regularly-scheduled executive meeting,
held in the conference room next to a person's office, and then hold
that meeting in the conference room during the time said meeting was
cancelled, when the people not invited to the meeting know full well
what's happening.[1][2]
[1] Particularly when this particular tactic has been used in the
past.
[2] I took the opportunity to pack my things and smile at people as
they passed my office, looking puzzled.
--
Mark C. Langston
ma...@bitshift.org
Systems Admin
San Jose, CA
Omri Schwarz
Dilbert's corporate espionage program comes to mind. Furfu..
--
Omri Schwarz --- ocs...@mit.edu ('h' before war)
Timeless wisdom of biomedical engineering: "Noise is principally
due to the presence of the patient." -- R.F. Farr
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
In <9srua...@enews2.newsguy.com>, on 11/13/2001
at 08:03 PM, "Mark C. Langston" <ma...@bitshift.org> said:
>[0] Rule #1: Don't cancel a regularly-scheduled executive meeting,
>held in the conference room next to a person's office, and then hold
>that meeting in the conference room during the time said meeting was
>cancelled, when the people not invited to the meeting know full well
>what's happening.[1][2]
I used to work at a company where they didn't tell employees they were
going to fired, they just left them off of the revised organization
chart. One day the Ayatollah[1] inadvertently left somebody off of the
new org chart, and he had a new job before the mistake was rectified.
This even handed justice that commends
The poisoned chalice that we have prepared
To our own lips
[1] To those who have orked there, this is a good clue as to where.
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
Reply to domain acm dot org user shmuel to contact me.
"He was born with a gift of laughter,
and a sense that the world was mad."
Tanuki the Raccoon-dog
said
>The day I used to look forward to, where I would leave
>$WEMAKESOFTWARE for anything else is upon me. Nothing
>else is in the works for me, since this day was supposedly
>postponed indefinitely - or at least until March - and
>now I'm left scrambling.
>
>I suppose I'm fine with my contract ending, but there's
>just this nagging issue of my *pride*. The fscking idiots
>that are still going to be there - you're dropping *me*
>and keeping *them*?
This is a form of the Sysadmin's Dilemma. If you do your
sysadminning *too* well, everything runs smoothly, and
then manglement don't really understand _why_[1] they
need to keep you on the staff.
When they go and throw the moneylenders out of the temple,
they don't realise that someday, come what may, they're
going to need a loan, and without their local friendly
moneylender on the staff, they've got no alternative but
to go to a loan-shark.
[1]there's a lot to be said for periodically engineering
a "controlled disaster"[2], from which you emerge as
the sysadmin-who-saved-the-day.
[2]assuming that you don't already run Microsoft software.
--
!Raised Tails! -:Tanuki:-
Short of breath? Try inhaling!
Rik Steenwinkel
<Tanuki@canis-^Hmajor.da^Hemon.co.uk> persuaded newsservers all over
the world to carry the following:
} [1]there's a lot to be said for periodically engineering
} a "controlled disaster"[2], from which you emerge as
} the sysadmin-who-saved-the-day.
} [2]assuming that you don't already run Microsoft software.
That's "Uncontrolled Disaster" no matter which way you look at it.
--
// Rik Steenwinkel # VMS mercenary # Enschede, Netherlands
James Campbell Andrew
> This is a form of the Sysadmin's Dilemma. If you do your
> sysadminning *too* well, everything runs smoothly, and
> then manglement don't really understand _why_[1] they
> need to keep you on the staff.
This has happened to me - at my last position (10 years ago) I was
feeding and caring for a Novel system on coax (urgh)[0]. My then-boss
made it be known that he considered me (who constituted 100% of the I.T
staff, mind you) to be 100% Overhead, along with the light bulbs. I told
him the analogy was actually fairly accurate, since without either he'd
be working in the dark.
Funny thing was, 3 months after I resigned the swerver was hit by
lightning.
Odd, that.
Jim
[0] 'Hunt The Wank Drop Cable' was a daily pastime.
--
j...@magrathea.plus.com -*- Grey...@mac.com
"We deal in the moral equivalent of black holes, where the normal
laws of right and wrong break down; beyond those metaphysical
event horizons there exist ... special circumstances" - Use Of Weapons
Mike Andrews
: j...@magrathea.plus.com (James Campbell Andrew) wrote in
: news:1f2vxlw.1fqpyn1x6xf7bN%j...@magrathea.plus.com:
:> Funny thing was, 3 months after I resigned the swerver was hit by
:> lightning.
: Ok, how did you do THAT?
My thought exactly, even before I read Juergen's post. Nice job!
--
A few years ago, Friday, October 14 was World Standards Day -- in
*some* countries. In America, it was observed on October 11th. In
Finland, it was marked on October 13th. Italy planned a separate
conference on standards for October 18th. - after Shakib Otaqui
Ralph Wade Phillips
"Mike Andrews" <mi...@mikea.ath.cx> wrote in message
news:voEI7.247$2C1.10...@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com...
> Juergen Nieveler <juergen....@web.de> wrote:
> : j...@magrathea.plus.com (James Campbell Andrew) wrote in
> : news:1f2vxlw.1fqpyn1x6xf7bN%j...@magrathea.plus.com:
>
> :> Funny thing was, 3 months after I resigned the swerver was hit by
> :> lightning.
>
> : Ok, how did you do THAT?
>
> My thought exactly, even before I read Juergen's post. Nice job!
Well, you know how you're supposed to ground one end of a coax
string? What happens if you connect the coax to the same ground as a
lightning rod - and disconnect the earth side? Or, better still, loosen up
the clamp and pour some mild acid into it, to make the connection a
variable-resistance connection?
Etherkiller run by natural power!
RwP
Ralph Wade Phillips
"Lionel" <n...@alt.net> wrote in message
news:ic66vtosljo1hqf4q...@4ax.com...
> Word has it that on Wed, 14 Nov 2001 21:59:32 +0000, in this august
> forum, Tanuki the Raccoon-dog <Tanuki@canis-^Hmajor.da^Hemon.co.uk>
> said:
>
> >This is a form of the Sysadmin's Dilemma. If you do your
> >sysadminning *too* well, everything runs smoothly, and
> >then manglement don't really understand _why_[1] they
> >need to keep you on the staff.
> >
> >When they go and throw the moneylenders out of the temple,
> >they don't realise that someday, come what may, they're
> >going to need a loan, and without their local friendly
> >moneylender on the staff, they've got no alternative but
> >to go to a loan-shark.
>
> At which point I enter the picture & quote them my rates for emergency
> work.
Strange you would write that.
I got a call Monday AM from someone I'd never heard before, saying
that one of my current customers had recommended me, and could I be there at
3:30 PM to see about changing some passwords for them? I said "Sure."
I showed up about 3:15, sat in the foyer and watched four policemen
escort out the bookkeeper / sysadmin and the Veep ... then promptly had to
help "humangineer" back the just-changed admin password and the password on
the Quickbooks files they used to run this ad agency on. We then forced new
passwords on all accounts, and I ended up with a shiny new Admin account on
said NT swerver.
Also had to disable SEVERAL admin accounts on the NT box they ran
on, reset the Win9X workstations to use <UI DELETED> instead of TCP/IP for
Macrosnot Notworking, and in general help deduce what was what.
Tomorrow (Thursday) I start the discovery of the ACLs lists on the
shares on the NT server, and tracing out why EVERYONE has file and print
sharing turned on. Much hilarity will ensue, methinks.
(BTW - Since I can speel{1} www.google.com I'm their fair-headed
boy. Wow. Doesn't take much to impress SOME folks.)
RwP
{1} Fingers mispelt it - I left it in 'cuz it fit.
James Campbell Andrew
> Let me guess - you unearthed the loop shield, then hung a terminated
> drop cable out a high window before you left?
No you don't, no clues :-)
Jim
James Campbell Andrew
> My thought exactly, even before I read Juergen's post. Nice job!
You understand, of course, that I cannot take any responsibility for
that? Pure coincidence. Ahem.
I actually went one better just before that: I made sure that the guy
that was hired to replace me (if I'm so useless why are you replacing
me? eh? eh?) was utterly unable to cut the job. Shortly after 'The
Lightning Incident' I'm reliably informed he became a drunk.
All in all I'm rather glad to have got out of that place.
Jim
James Campbell Andrew
> at my last position (10 years ago) I was
> feeding and caring for a Novel system on coax
...and before you pull me up on using THAT, I was young and needed the
money, ok?
Jim
James Campbell Andrew
> That must have been a nice change.
This must be some new meaning of the word 'nice', one that I was
previously unaware of...
Jim
Jens Goerke
> Word has it that on Thu, 15 Nov 2001 14:27:58 GMT, in this august forum,
> dagb...@home.com (Dave Brown) said:
> >In article <1f2vxlw.1fqpyn1x6xf7bN%j...@magrathea.plus.com>,> >: a Novel system
> >That must have been a nice change.
Although it lost a lot in the translation.
ObASR: Redundant systems and failover tests. `nuff said.
Jens, having just completed the six month trial period
--
You can't out-sarcasm reality.
Tanuki the Raccoon-dog
said
>ObASR: Redundant systems and failover tests. `nuff said.
Ah, such fun can be had with redundant backbone feeds and
"unannounced" testing. HHarg-Jbeyqpbz's idea of route-
precedence is clearly the product of topology diagrams
drawn by epileptic retards after ingesting a few too many
mikes of acid, and transcribed on to used copies of The
Sun[1] by Stevie Wonder using a mop dipped in creosote.
[1] .UKian tabloid 'news'paper renowned for bare-breasted
women on page-3, and a vocabulary of significantly less than
500 words.
--
!Raised Tails! -:Tanuki:-
"It's one of those irregular verbs: I have an independent mind, you
are an eccentric, he is round the twist" --Yes, Prime Minister.
Lieven Marchand
> Funny thing was, 3 months after I resigned the swerver was hit by
> lightning.
I've heard about leaving trojans and bombs, but how did you manage to
arrange that?
--
Lieven Marchand <m...@wyrd.be>
She says, "Honey, you're a Bastard of great proportion."
He says, "Darling, I plead guilty to that sin."
Cowboy Junkies -- A few simple words
James Campbell Andrew
> I've heard about leaving trojans and bombs, but how did you manage to
> arrange that?
(whistles innocently)
Jim
Mike Andrews
: Quoth Lionel (n...@alt.net):
:> Word has it that on Thu, 15 Nov 2001 14:27:58 GMT, in this august forum,
:> dagb...@home.com (Dave Brown) said:
:> >In article <1f2vxlw.1fqpyn1x6xf7bN%j...@magrathea.plus.com>,
:> >James Campbell Andrew <j...@magrathea.plus.com> wrote:
:> >: a Novel system
:> >That must have been a nice change.
:> And it had a very entertaining manual too.
: Although it lost a lot in the translation.
: ObASR: Redundant systems and failover tests. `nuff said.
Ah, you chose Door Two! Behind Door Two iiiiiiiiiis:
A complete machine room of Tandem kit! Congratulations!
--
Censorship sucks^H^H^H^H^H is for your own good.
Mike Andrews
: In <GMuxM...@jgfl1.allcon.com>, Jens Goerke <gri...@jgfl1.allcon.com>
: said
:>ObASR: Redundant systems and failover tests. `nuff said.
: Ah, such fun can be had with redundant backbone feeds and
: "unannounced" testing. UUnet-Worldcom's idea of route-
: precedence is clearly the product of topology diagrams
: drawn by epileptic retards after ingesting a few too many
: mikes of acid, and transcribed on to used copies of The
: Sun[1] by Stevie Wonder using a mop dipped in creosote.
Well, one of my dearest friends was employee #2 at UU, and Chief
Scientist there until January or so of this year, when the Borg
That Bought UU made it plain that he was a nonperson. He fought
that sort of thing long and hard, but since UU got borged, he
said, it was a losing fight. Now he enjoys his sailboat and his
wife's show horses, and his ulcer is much, much better.
--
I just overheard someone referring to Solaris 2.6 as a "virgin
operating system". With a straight face, no less. In one sense, I can
see it. The one whereby it knows what it wants to do, it's just not
entirely sure how... -- Carl Jacobs
Alan J. Wylie
> When they go and throw the moneylenders out of the temple, they
> don't realise that someday, come what may, they're going to need a
> loan, and without their local friendly moneylender on the staff,
> they've got no alternative but to go to a loan-shark.
The staff being a large stick or a small bargepole?
--
Alan J. Wylie http://www.glaramara.freeserve.co.uk/
"Perfection [in design] is achieved not when there is nothing left to add,
but rather when there is nothing left to take away."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
.
Michael Hinz
> My contract ends on 12/31/2001 - currently I'm on a forced 2-week vacation
> to get rid of my vacation days (everybody had to take their leftover
> vacations so that the company could save money - the situation is BAD).
>
> I left there friday afternoon - and today got the first mail that they had
> trouble with the mailserver ($exchange, but it ran smoothly when I left on
> friday) and the web proxy (Squid on DeadRat, but the hardware is a bit on
> the vintage side... I had to take what was left over [1]).
Well, I hope you told them you are on a forced vacation and it will get
fixed (*if* it will get fixed) when you get back.
As for the "vintage hardware" - most of the "older" machines I ran were
pretty reliable[0] compared to the *new* stuff. Darwinism works for
computers as well.
> Not that I'll renew my contract - after all THEY fired ME.
Yup. They sound as if they deserve whatever becomes of them.
> [1] The good machines are used as workstations for the web designers and
> coders. The not-so-good machines are used as file- and mail-servers. What's
> left over is used for whatever anybody comes up with - and the 2 oldest
> machines are used as firewall and proxy server.
Hmm, that depends on the definition of "good".
My bunch of swervers sure are not the fastest machines around (ranging
from a Pentium 150(!) to a Xeon 550 (only one processor)). Sure, most
of them have heaps of memory, and lots of disk, mostly SCSI, but they're
still no match for some of the desk- or even laptops.
But as I said above (and below), "good" in my case is more reliability
than raw power. If you don't have a Gigabit line to "da internet" you
don't need anything more than a medium to highend Pentium (do the math)
as a firewall. And memory and disk are much more of a performance-issue
for the web poxy... eh proxy than raw machine power.
Michael
[0] Heh. DECstation 5000/125 running about a year until the error log got
bigger than the available memory. Our "intranet-server" also running
for a year (from a cranky deadrat install) until I put debian on it
because the dead rat refused to compile kernels and a newer version
of mysql[1]. No DSW intended. Oh, and the only NT swerver (ehaavat ANI)
had to be rebooted about every other day, although it's running on nearly
identical hardware (Pbzcnd Cebyvnag 1600, bar jvgu n CVV-350 naq bar
jvgu n CVV-400).
[1] Don't. I know it isn't an industrial-grade database. It doesn't have
to. Read what I wrote about the uptime.
--
Another of my pet peeves is the use of random special characters in names,
e.g. SQL*Forms. I pronounce that one "squeal splat forms" - sort of sounds
like roadkill, doesn't it?
-- Charlie Gibbs
Pim van Riezen
> Word has it that on Thu, 15 Nov 2001 22:48:53 GMT, in this august forum,
> mi...@mikea.ath.cx (Mike Andrews) said:
>
> >Well, one of my dearest friends was employee #2 at UU, and Chief
> >Scientist there until January or so of this year, when the Borg
> >That Bought UU made it plain that he was a nonperson. He fought
> >that sort of thing long and hard, but since UU got borged, he
> >said, it was a losing fight.
>
> Ugh. I've had that happen to me, & it's utterly soul-destroying. I
> pretty much went into a major depression that it took me six months to
> drag myself out of.
Damn, I'm only in month three and it feels like you're on the mark
predicting six. Luckily there is GTA3 to pass the days.
Pi
Mike Andrews
Waaaaaay back when I worked for Lockheed Missiles & Space Co.,
we had a manager at our site who managed to Utterly Piss Off
All The Important NASA Folks where we were. Lockheed shipped in
a new manager, who gave the old one an office, a desk, a chair,
and a phone. Nothing else. Nothing to do but sit there.
He lasted about 6 weeks.
--
"A lady came up to me on the street and pointed at my suede jacket. You
know a cow was murdered for that jacket?' she sneered.
I replied in a psychotic tone, 'I didn't know there were any witnesses.
Now I'll have to kill you too." --Jake Johansen
James Campbell Andrew
> and a phone. Nothing else. Nothing to do but sit there.
Wasn't it rather dangerous giving him a phone?
Jim
Mike Andrews
: In article <K_8J7.24405$Z71.340...@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com>,
: Mike Andrews <mi...@mikea.ath.cx> wrote:
: : Waaaaaay back when I worked for Lockheed Missiles & Space Co.,
: : we had a manager at our site who managed to Utterly Piss Off All
: : The Important NASA Folks where we were. Lockheed shipped in a
: : new manager, who gave the old one an office, a desk, a chair,
: : and a phone. Nothing else. Nothing to do but sit there.
: :
: : He lasted about 6 weeks.
: Isn't that known as "constructive dismissal" and thus not strictly
: kosher?
P'raps so, but this was in the mid-60s, when we weren't quite so
litigious as a society, and the guy _knew_ he had screwed the
pooch big-time.
Another poster asked if giving him a phone wasn't dangerous. I
don't recall saying that it worked.
The new manager, Jerry Christensen, was one great guy -- and not
just in comparison to Lennie-the-Bastard. He was a really great
guy on his own merits. I really liked working there, but it was
The Very Best when Jerry was running things. I'd work for him in
a Noo Yawk minnit.
--
"If God had intended us to vote, he'd have given us candidates."
Gary S. Callison
: there's a lot to be said for periodically engineering
: a "controlled disaster"[2], from which you emerge as
: the sysadmin-who-saved-the-day.
: [2]assuming that you don't already run Microsoft software.
If you're working in the sort of shop that doesn't already have these
without any untoward influence, I'm envious.
When I started here 2-1/2 years ago, we had on average 2 or 3 production
machines (out of 110 or so in the platform) go titsup.com in the average
week. Six months of tweaking and performance enhancements [4] later, we're
down to around one a month if that.
We started to get nervous because we weren't 'saving the day' often
enough.
Sure enough, once we'd taken care of all of the molehills, the mountains
presented themselves. Y2K, when most of y'all were having a fabulous time
tippling in your server rooms, we were doing the 'react-to-fiber-cut'
drill. And there's been other nightmares since.
Two months ago, we had 1) a lightning hit, 2) an overloaded PDU, and 3) a
battery room relay that didn't. And suddenly, my platform, some of the
machines on which had 5-year uptimes [3], wasn't. And a suprisingly large
number of pieces of kit that hadn't been turned off in five years had
somehow forgotten how nice that was, and didn't want to come back.
Customer impact was around 2-1/2 hours. Hey! I'm a hero. Go figure.
I was here for 25 straight hours, opened five separate pri1 tickets with
big blue, and three of my console switches and one of my hubs is _still_
dead on accounta there ain't no service contract on 'em and I'm still
working on scrounging parts. Of course, none of the backend of this
nightmare makes me look like a hero anymore...
[3] the ones that don't run M$, oy. Redmondware gets regular reboots.
[4] ...chief among which is footnote #3...
--
Huey
Garrett Wollman
actual UI was emitted in the production of this mini-rant.]
In article <tvbmu8d...@corp.supernews.com>,
Gary S. Callison <hu...@interaccess.com> wrote:
>If you're working in the sort of shop that doesn't already have these
>without any untoward influence, I'm envious.
Today I reloaded a router for what turned out to be no good reason,
and discovered once why I loathe and detest Cisco with all of my
heart.
I reloaded the router because something strange was happening with our
NccyrGnyx name binding. (Hey, it's academentia, this is the sort of
crap we're stuck with!) In my desire to confine that particular evil
to as small a space as possible, I have engineered the network such
that there is, by gods, only one router which ever has to know the
slightest thing about NccyrGnyx: the aforementioned Cisco. Since the
version of IOS we're running has a few cobwebbed corners where
NccyrGnyx is concerned [1] we've found that the thing occasionally has
to be reloaded to keep from getting frotzed. (Usually our friends at
Cambridge Electric Light Company manage to do this for us by having
unscheduled outages just long enough to drain our Matrix 5000's
battery.) So that's our usual response to any sort of NccyrGnyx
screwage if there isn't anything identifiably wrong with the actual
machines.[2]
The unpleasant surprise had to do with our IP routing. See, the
NccyrGnyx router is also our IP exit router to the Real World. It had
to be: it's the only piece of Cisco kit in an otherwise all-Extreme
network. So when our NccyrGnyx internet craps out, the whole building
loses real Internet for ten minutes while the Cisco reloads. Of
course, it shouldn't take ten minutes to reload, except for two bits
of extreme silliness on the part of our upstream:
1) They insisted on putting a L2 switch on our side of the link
between us, so their router can't even tell when the link between us
is down....
2) They insisted on not running a routing protocol with us, so in
between the time the Cisco comes back up and the time its OSPF
adjacency comes up on our internal network, our border Cisco and their
edge Cisco are playing an exciting game of Sorceror's Apprentice
looping tens of thousands of packets per second across the link
between us, all the while spewing thousands of ICMP Time Exceeded
errors at all and sundry. This, of course, sucks up all the CPU in
our Cisco so it takes forever to actually form that adjacency.
The only way to get the router to come back up in a reasonable period
of time is to physically pull that link while the Cisco is booting,
and then put it back after OSPF has stabilized on our side.
Now as I mentioned, this turned out to be a totally pointless
exercise. The ultimate cause of the NccyrGnyx problem turned out to
be the offending group's NT backup domain controller, which for
reasons I do not know and do not care to understand was running
Jvaqbjf Freivprf sbe Znpvagbfu. I know that the machine's
configuration was sane originally because I watched carefully over the
shoulder of the admin while he configured it. The best we can make
out, at some point that machine was made into a file server (please
don't bother with the standard rant, it's not my responsibility and I
want to keep it that way), and Windows decided to be ``helpful'' in
the way that only Windows can by switching on the NccyrGnyx routing
function without telling anyone.
Good thing it was the Friday before a slow, holiday-shortened week. I
don't think the users need to know about this experience, nosiree!
-GAWollman
[1] What, Cisco!? Bugs in IOS!? Never!
[2] Thank you so much, Nccyr, for your ``No User-Serviceable Parts
Inside'' approach to network protocol design and configuration.
--
Garrett A. Wollman | O Siem / We are all family / O Siem / We're all the same
wol...@lcs.mit.edu | O Siem / The fires of freedom
Opinions not those of| Dance in the burning flame
MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Susan Aglukark and Chad Irschick
Kai Henningsen
> [1] .UKian tabloid 'news'paper renowned for bare-breasted
> women on page-3, and a vocabulary of significantly less than
> 500 words.
And here I always thought it was like "Bild" ('picture'). Seems I was
mistaken: Bild has the women on page 1 (and on the last, and probably
somewhere else, too), usually drips blood, and will hardly ever be caught
with a major article that's completely factually correct.
ISTR they usually got more citations from the Federal Press Council (a
private organization watching over the journalistic ethics) than all other
papers put together.
Kai
--
http://www.westfalen.de/private/khms/
"... by God I *KNOW* what this network is for, and you can't have it."
- Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu)
Garrett Wollman
Cliff Crawford <cj...@cornell.edu> wrote:
>No kidding..although my problem is convincing the PHBs that Nccyr stuff
>IS crap..
Given that the alternative is Winlose 2000, I'm usually willing to put
up with dodgy Apple stuff if it means less dodgy Microsoft crapware.
But I really wish it hadn't taken Apple ten OS revisions to figure out
that proprietary network protocols were double-plus-ungood.
Thankfully, I expect that Business Applications will be approved for
OS X long before they're approved for Winlose XP. My Mac-head friends
tell me that Office for OS X is even tolerable (or at least, more so
than Office for Windows).
-GAWollman
Jens Goerke
> In article <J4BJ7.172993$Ne.15...@typhoon.nyroc.rr.com>,
> Cliff Crawford <cj...@cornell.edu> wrote:
> >No kidding..although my problem is convincing the PHBs that Nccyr stuff
> >IS crap..
> Given that the alternative is Winlose 2000, I'm usually willing to put
> up with dodgy Apple stuff if it means less dodgy Microsoft crapware.
> But I really wish it hadn't taken Apple ten OS revisions to figure out
> that proprietary network protocols were double-plus-ungood.
They had a reason for their proprietary protocol, and since the UI
is only for histerical raisins it doesn't need rot-ting. The Z8530SCC
does most of the actual packet handling, so the CPU only had to handle
the actual data in the packets. Sadly, however, they decided to keep
that protocol when moving to other network hardware, thereby enabling
any department to saturate a network by turning on their machines
simultaneously.
Jens, remembering endless hours of field service[0]
[0] Servers, routers, orkstations, repeaters, coax, PHB-type
customers, data recovery, the lot. Luckily that was two
jobs ago.
Earl Grey
> No kidding..although my problem is convincing the PHBs that Nccyr stuff
> IS crap..
Hey. My Atomic Weight 47.867 lapdog does VERY well, thank-you-very-much.
Now all I need is an extra 0.5 GB of RAM, and an ethernet PCMCIA card,
and I'll be set....
--
They tell me that you're going to try posting to Alt.Sysadmin.Recovery.
It's a Magnificent Idea; A Daring and Splendid Idea! It will be FUN!
Assuming you're not vaporized, dissected, or otherwise killed in an
assortment of supremely horrible and painful ways! Exciting, Isn't It?!
Earl Grey
> But I really wish it hadn't taken Apple ten OS revisions to figure out
> that proprietary network protocols were double-plus-ungood.
[Nod][Nod][Nod]
> My Mac-head friends tell me that Office ...
Mommeee, He said a Bad Word!
[Grumble][Grumble]"proprietary"[Grumble]documents...[Grumble]
Jasper Janssen
>Cliff Crawford wrote:
>
>> No kidding..although my problem is convincing the PHBs that Nccyr stuff
>> IS crap..
>
>Hey. My Atomic Weight 47.867 lapdog does VERY well, thank-you-very-much.
>Now all I need is an extra 0.5 GB of RAM, and an ethernet PCMCIA card,
>and I'll be set....
You misspelled 802.11b network card & AirPort.
Jasper
The Scarlet Manuka
and said:
> Juergen Nieveler <juergen....@web.de> wrote:
>: j...@magrathea.plus.com (James Campbell Andrew) wrote in
>: news:1f2vxlw.1fqpyn1x6xf7bN%j...@magrathea.plus.com:
>
>:> Funny thing was, 3 months after I resigned the swerver was hit by
>:> lightning.
>
>: Ok, how did you do THAT?
>
> My thought exactly, even before I read Juergen's post. Nice job!
... but why did it take you three months?
--
The Scarlet Manuka
Ralph Wade Phillips
"The Scarlet Manuka" <sa...@maths.uwa.edu.au> wrote in message
news:9ta3q3$lao$3...@fang.dsto.defence.gov.au...
"Two words, Mr. President - Plausible Deniability."
No need to Slurp that Robot.
RwP
David P. Murphy
> Of course, the old servers was 50 Megs short of filling up it's disk,
> and $exchange-Admins know what that means...
That they shouldn't have been running Exchange in the first place?
ok
dpm
--
David P. Murphy http://www.myths.com/~dpm/
systems programmer ftp://ftp.myths.com
mailto:d...@myths.com (personal)
COGITO ERGO DISCLAMO mailto:Murphy...@emc.com (work)
Earl Grey
I was thinking something else for another LapDog, methinks.
And they don't have the one I want on hand just yet. I checked.
That, and throwing out the "Cat", and I figure I'm set.
Heh. Probably a bit TOO cryptic.
" "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull
" his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you
" understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send
" signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that
" there is no cat."
- Albert Einstein on the topic of Radio.
Michael Hinz
> In article <J4BJ7.172993$Ne.15...@typhoon.nyroc.rr.com>,
> Cliff Crawford <cj...@cornell.edu> wrote:
>
> >No kidding..although my problem is convincing the PHBs that Nccyr stuff
> >IS crap..
>
> Given that the alternative is Winlose 2000, I'm usually willing to put
> up with dodgy Apple stuff if it means less dodgy Microsoft crapware.
> But I really wish it hadn't taken Apple ten OS revisions to figure out
> that proprietary network protocols were double-plus-ungood.
And this is different from SMB, Windows RPC and not to mention Kerberos#[0]
like how? Look at samba development sometime, especially the beginning (the
fun part, where Microsoft accused the samba team of being bad-ass crackers).
And let's see about those versions. Hm, 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, NT, NT3.0,
NT3.1, NT3.5, NT3.51, NT4.0, W2k, Wxp. From what I can see they still haven't
solved that "proprietary protocol" problem[1].
Michael
[0] well, if Microsoft can use '#' to describe something inferior, so can I.
[1] main rant right now: what kind of moron decided Exchange, and by extension
also Outlook, had to use not one or two protocols but *all* of them plus
a little extra, simultaneously, to provide something as simple as two-way
mail access. They could have used HTTP for that. Morons[2]. Well, ok,
whatever they pull over our heads against our advice[3], this stuff
will Not. Ever. Have any connection through my firewall. Yes, that also
means we'll not have anything like Outlook Web Access[5][9] visible from
duh internet. If you have to use inferior software, do so over inferior
lines (33.6k dialup with very restricted outside access), not over
[AS]DSL, cable or wireless.
[2] on the other hand, this *is* Microsoft we're talking about.
[3] and we're not just telling them we don't want Exchange because we don't
like it but because we did the Official Microsoft Course on Implementing
and Maintaining Exchange (#1572) and saw what it was capable of[4].
[4] wreaking havoc on a Microsoft-only network, basically. I'd rather go back
to using sendmail than having to use that, uh..., MTA.
[5] and I *did* mention to the lusers in power that OWA won't support the
things they wanted Exchange for anyway[6].
[6] yes, folks, we're about to spend over .5 mill NoK on a shareable calendar.
As I told them, for half a million I write it myself. I'd even write
a Windowsy luser-interface with that kind of money. It won't be usable
(without security, they don't want security - everybody should be able
to mess with anybody else's calendar[7][8]), but it'll work better than
Exchange for that purpose.
[7] also told them their problem was not a tech-problem but an attitude-
problem. Of course that comment was ignored.
[8] oh, btw., of course I'll be marked "busy" the next five years. And I
already know from previous experiences at that PoE, there'll be at
least ten percent doing exactly that, about three to five percent
using it as "intended", and the rest will blissfully ignore everything
written to their calendars. NoK 100000,- per user is a pretty hefty
price per seat, not to mention the support cost (we fully expect to
use one man-year per year just to run that abomination and fixing
the sideeffects it'll have on our network). Oy, Jürgen, wanna work
in Northern Norway? ;)
[9] I forgot to mention our webmaster talks about "integrating" Exchange
into our website. Well ok, we'll make it send a mail to a program
account on the webserver every night which dumps the contact info
on the Exchange server into webpages. You call that integration?
Because that's what you'll get and nothing more.
Volker Borchert
> [ AppleTalk ], thereby enabling
> any department to saturate a network by turning on their machines
> simultaneously.
Well if I turn on my machines[0] at home simultaneously, the network[1]
will also be saturated.
[0] About a dozen diskless Sun 3/80, 4/60, 4/75, booting off a Sparc-10/41.
[1] Single 10 MBit/sec segment. Switch due to arrive this week though.
--
"I'm a doctor, not a mechanic." Dr Leonard McCoy <mc...@ncc1701.starfleet.fed>
"I'm a mechanic, not a doctor." Volker Borchert <b...@teknon.de>
Jay Maynard
>[0] About a dozen diskless Sun 3/80, 4/60, 4/75, booting off a Sparc-10/41.
FPA "bouncing off"...seems more appropriate that way.